For Science! - what was not announced or mentioned

[mcwaffles2003]

I think telescope usage shouldn't be needed to uncover basic properties (size/mass/color/orbital path/moons) of super nearby planets like Duna, Eve, Moho, or Jool. Though maybe have it be a mechanic for Eeloo to introduce players to the mechanism as they prepare to go interstellar.

As for those concerned about the mechanic existing in the game or the devs being aware of the concept I can at least off this quote by Nate confirming that using telescopes to discover planets as a mechanic was an intended mechanism to implement:

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Wheehaw Kerman said:

That would be silly of the devs.  I’d be surprised if they hid something as basic behind a telescope requirement.

This is usually what people are talking about when they want telescope requirements, gating the solar system behind seeing it from afar. If you're just talking about the presence of telescopes in science then I have zero issues, and never have.

[Vl3d]

4 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

I think telescope usage shouldn't be needed to uncover basic properties (size/mass/color/orbital path/moons) of super nearby planets like Duna, Eve, Moho, or Jool. Though maybe have it be a mechanic for Eeloo to introduce players to the mechanism as they prepare to go interstellar.

As for those concerned about the mechanic existing in the game or the devs being aware of the concept I can at least off this quote by Nate confirming that using telescopes to discover planets as a mechanic was an intended mechanism to implement:

It is my strong belief that surface details of planets inside the Kerbol system should be hidden by an exploration fog until they're studied by telescopes and probes. That's the whole point of "exploring the map" in any game.

[Wheehaw Kerman]

1 hour ago, shdwlrd said:

It depends on the reasoning for the telescope. If you need a telescope to discover a planet in your solar system, that's stupid. You should see the planet transiting across the night sky. You know it's there. If you want to use the telescope to get a better view of the planet, that's cool. If you want to use a telescope to do a ground survey before a mission, that's up to you. But using telescopes for anything in the Kerbol system should be optional and not a requirement for any discoveries.

I’ll just point to how Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto, not to mention a host of smaller objects, were discovered.  And astronomers can’t work up orbital elements by eyeball.  And speaking of outer planets, imagine our collective reaction to the telescopes revealing outer planets in the Kerbolar system :).

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

It is my strong belief that surface details of planets inside the Kerbol system should be hidden by an exploration fog until they're studied by telescopes and probes. That's the whole point of "exploring the map" in any game.

What happens if I go there and just land something?

[Wheehaw Kerman]

9 minutes ago, regex said:

This is usually what people are talking about when they want telescope requirements, gating the solar system behind seeing it from afar. If you're just talking about the presence of telescopes in science then I have zero issues, and never have.

I’m talking about fog of game in science, as opposed to gating.  Telescopes good enough to image the Mün and give you at least basic orbital data on the rest of the Kerbolar system should be an “infrastructure gimme”, like things like, say, electricity and the chemistry needed for solid fuel.  If the Kerbals have basic rocketry they should have basic (circa 1950s) astronomy.  IMHO they shouldn’t have Mariner-level data on Duna until their first flyby.  So I’m largely in agreement with you.

2 minutes ago, regex said:

What happens if I go there and just land something?

Ideally, something like what happened to the early Soviet Venus shots :).

Edited October 24, 2023 by Wheehaw Kerman

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Wheehaw Kerman said:

Ideally, something like what happened to the early Soviet Venus shots :).

I don't think we're going to get that sort of failure (or similar stuff in airless environments) in the vanilla game. What would we replace that with if we had a fog?

[Wheehaw Kerman]

Just now, regex said:

I don't think we're going to get that sort of failure (or similar stuff in airless environments) in the vanilla game. What would we replace that with if we had a fog?

I think you’re right.  The forum meltdown if IG tinkered with the Kerbolar system to up the challenge would be massive.   This is why I am looking forwards to Interstellar so much.  We’ve been zooming around the Kerbolar system so much that I’d bet that most of us know more about it than we do about our own.  Getting to explore a completely unknown new stellar system with bodies that are intentionally different from what we’ve seen to date is going to be an utter blast.

[Gargamel]

Since the back and forth is getting a little heated, we’ll lock this thread for a little bit just to let people step back for a moment.   

[shdwlrd]

3 hours ago, Wheehaw Kerman said:

I’ll just point to how Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto, not to mention a host of smaller objects, were discovered.  And astronomers can’t work up orbital elements by eyeball.  And speaking of outer planets, imagine our collective reaction to the telescopes revealing outer planets in the Kerbolar system :).

The R&D complex does have an observatory with a huge telescope pointing to the sky. (KSP1) So a space based telescope for discovery of the Kerbol system is unnecessary. The Kerbals know what celestial bodies are in their solar system. They should know the general properties if each celestial body already. Space based telescopes is better released with the interstellar update. If any telescopes are released with the FOR SCIENCE! update, they would be the ground survey type.

[Superfluous J]

8 hours ago, Vl3d said:

But did he do it without a telescope?

He did it without using a space telescope, yes.

Or are you proposing we set up tripods outside the astronaut complex and have Bob right click them and "view Duna"?

---- Forum merged my two completely unrelated posts -----

I think it could be pretty interesting if the planets were randomly, procedurally generated and we really couldn't tell what exactly was there until we either went there or used a big enough telescope to see them. Don't restrict play for not using telescopes, but let the telescopes assist play. That could add something interesting.

However, 99% of my interplanetary missions didn't have a specific spot on the surface I wanted to land. I tended to always chose my landing spot immediately before my deorbit burn. So for me I wouldn't really need to use the telescopes.

But I probably would.

Edited October 25, 2023 by Superfluous J
interstellar -> interplanetary

[Kerbart]

39 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

He did it without using a space telescope, yes.

Technically yes, but the answer suggests he used ground based telescopes, which he didn't do either.  Kepler did experiment with the newly invented telescopes but only after he had already published his work on the orbits of the planets.

[mcwaffles2003]

8 hours ago, Vl3d said:

It is my strong belief that surface details of planets inside the Kerbol system should be hidden by an exploration fog until they're studied by telescopes and probes. That's the whole point of "exploring the map" in any game.

 

So this is what I would do in my ideal system...

Below are three images. Image 1 you guys might recognize from SCANsat and I would like that map projection system to make it to the base game, though having a plain 2D map as well would be ideal. Image 2 would be the hard map data which would be uncovered by us over time. Finally Image 3 illustrates to us what uncovering the map might look like.  On a mechanical level Image 3 would be generated by taking Image 2 and running a series of masking layers over it that blur the image below. Each layer would correspond to a level of detail that has been revealed by specific hierarchical means. Notice in Image 3  there are three boxes (red, yellow, and green)...

• Originally, before planet discovery, the planet wouldn't show up nor its orbit revealed. Not even a blank page in reference material, just nothing. Once the body is discovered though, possibly with an orbital telescope, it would show up as a grey sphere representing the player knows something is there, but there is no clue as to what it is.
• In the image, to the right of the red rectangle, is the portion with maximum blur. This is what the body would be covered with using a level 1 scan (advanced telescope from a distance or perhaps a crew report from orbit).
• Inside the red square would be a level 2 scan (Orbiting probe with a low tech camera).
• Inside the yellow box would be a level 3 scan (Orbiting probe with a more high tech camera).
• Finally, the green square, a level 4 scan (which wouldn't show up as a box but perhaps a 20km radius circle around where a site was prospected. Just make it so if you do a level 3 scan in a region that has only had a level one scan it bypasses the level 2 masking layer as well.

 

Spoiler

Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

Now as to the cases of planets in the Kerbolar system its obvious we should know where they are to start with as IRL we can see mars and Jupiter and just... cmon, y'know? But for these planets we shouldn't have full perfect maps. Instead, for instance with the Mun, we could have the the kerbin facing side be revealed with level 3 data while the opposite side is still greyed out as no Kerbin bound kerbal has seen that yet. As for the case of Duna, perhaps the whole surface could have a level 1 or 2 scan projected on it as would also be the case with Moho. Eve would be a different story and Im curious how you guys would like to deal with 100% cloud planets, but I don't think we can consider their surfaces known and I think they should require a special scope like the Synthetic Aperture Radar systems Scott Manley showed us in  this video:
 

Spoiler

 

 Finally, I personally think it would be okay for Eeloo to remain hidden and we could use its discovery to introduce players to the planet discovering mechanic as they prepare for deep space/ interstellar missions. Though others may disagree and Im not hard set on this and don't care to argue on the matter.

8 hours ago, regex said:

What happens if I go there and just land something?

If you can manage to do so then you would uncover the map of the planet in the ways specified above as well as the planets orbital characteristics.

Edited October 25, 2023 by mcwaffles2003

[Wheehaw Kerman]

3 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

The R&D complex does have an observatory with a huge telescope pointing to the sky. (KSP1) So a space based telescope for discovery of the Kerbol system is unnecessary. The Kerbals know what celestial bodies are in their solar system. They should know the general properties if each celestial body already. Space based telescopes is better released with the interstellar update. If any telescopes are released with the FOR SCIENCE! update, they would be the ground survey type.

And there’s a cutscene featuring a scientist observing a bug perched on the lens of their telescope, which I think is the first non-Kerbal life-form seen in the game.

[Superfluous J]

21 minutes ago, Wheehaw Kerman said:

And there’s a cutscene featuring a scientist observing a bug perched on the lens of their telescope, which I think is the first non-Kerbal life-form seen in the game.

I don't recall that video. Is it more than 10 years old? Because this is the first one I recall having a non-Kerbal life form in it:

 

[Guest]

9 hours ago, Vl3d said:

It is my strong belief that surface details of planets inside the Kerbol system should be hidden by an exploration fog until they're studied by telescopes and probes. That's the whole point of "exploring the map" in any game.

I think that would be nice flavor but what gameplay difference would it make?

(I’m assuming that you didn’t mean that a crewed mission wouldn’t reveal them just like a probe mission.)

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Periple said:

I think that would be nice flavor but what gameplay difference would it make?

It would make no difference. Like @Superfluous J I just show up at a planet and land, I don't plan out a spot or anything. Maybe I'll scope something neat out from orbit but where I'm going to land is the last thing on my mind while designing a mission.

None of these "fog" ideas hold any interest to me and so long as they don't seek to prevent me from whacking down a maneuver node, finding an intercept, and expending some fuel, I literally don't care about them. It's pure, uninteresting fluff. Locking intercepts out or preventing expenditures of delta-V are terrible gameplay, especially for experienced players. Going interstellar will be the real "fog of game", Kerbol isn't and shouldn't be a mystery.

[Guest]

I'd use the telescope "fog of war" mechanic for interstellar targets, and the scan-sat like scanning as part of the resource gameplay loop and not science.

[WelshSteW]

 

Tbf I think we're all used to having KSP set up how we each like to play it, with the mods we like. The modding for KSP2 isn't anywhere near the level it is for KSP, and won't be for a long time, so we're each arguing that the things we like should be included in the base game.

My love of the ResearchBodies mod means I'd like the inclusion of telescopes, and of having to 'discover' planets and moons etc. But I understand that it won't be for everyone. I could argue that it should be included in the game, or I can sit and wait and hope that someone recreates the mod for KSP2*.

 

 

*or I could have a go creating it myself, but I don't think I've got the skills  

[Wheehaw Kerman]

10 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

I don't recall that video. Is it more than 10 years old? Because this is the first one I recall having a non-Kerbal life form in it:

 

I actually hadn’t seen that one.  Thanks!   The cutscene I was referring to was in KSP2 - the one with the telescope.  I suppose the first evidence of non-Kerbal life in the game is the birdsong at KSC, but we’ve never actually seen the “birds”…

[Stoup]

I'd love to hear more about the current status of lots of the little things that have been mentioned as eventually tasks, just to get an idea that they haven't fallen off the team's radar!

Off the top of my head,

CBT terrain system. I'm sure this one is still in the works, but a little status update would be nice

Colliders for terrain scatters/trees etc

Colliders for the mini asteroids in planetary belts

Ehh, that's all that immediately comes to mind for me. I know we have a number of QoL bits in the pipelines, but there's so many possibilities here and I just hope they're all fleshed out to a good degree 

[Spicat]

9 minutes ago, Stoup said:

CBT terrain system. I'm sure this one is still in the works, but a little status update would be nice

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, Stoup said:

CBT terrain system. I'm sure this one is still in the works, but a little status update would be nice

I wouldn't be surprised if this one gets dropped. It sounds like a pretty big change, and I think the current terrain system is good enough, assuming the optimizations they've made for 0.1.5/0.2.0 are as described. (And I expect there's more room for optimization there too.)

[Scarecrow71]

53 minutes ago, Periple said:

assuming the optimizations they've made for 0.1.5/0.2.0 are as described. (And I expect there's more room for optimization there too.)

How does one actually optimize visual features?  I know you can go through the code and streamline that, but after a certain point you simply cannot optimize the actual code itself (you will eventually get to a point where you have minimized it all it can be).  So how beyond that do you optimize visual features?

I'm not asking to be a d-bag, but because I honestly would like to know how this is being done.  I'm a nerd.

[Stoup]

Ahh, I hadn't seen either of those posts! Was there some kinda interview I missed or was this Nate just randomly popping in